Provisioning conference rooms

ABSTRACT

A method, executed by a computer, for provisioning chat rooms (e.g. audio, video, and/or text-based communication) includes determining a topic by accessing one or more user communities, creating a chat corresponding to the topic, selecting one or more users to invite to the chat using a template, and inviting the one or more users to the chat. A computer program product and computer system corresponding to the above method are also disclosed herein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to online collaboration, andmore specifically, to provisioning conference rooms.

In the field of online communication, options for chat and conferencinghave grown due to an increase in the availability of network bandwidth.As text, audio, and video conferencing have increased, so have thenumber of conference rooms dedicated to a particular subject ofconversation. Often a user may wish to find other users with specifictraits, habits, or qualifications. One challenge is introducing users toeach other in order to facilitate such expertise-based collaboration.

SUMMARY

As disclosed herein, a method, executed by a computer, for provisioningchat rooms (e.g. audio, video, and/or text-based communication) includesdetermining a topic by accessing one or more user communities, creatinga chat corresponding to the topic, selecting one or more users to inviteto the chat using a template, and inviting the one or more users to thechat. A computer program product and computer system corresponding tothe above method are also disclosed herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting one embodiment of a roomprovisioning environment in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram depicting one embodiment of a roomprovisioning system in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart depicting one embodiment of a room provisioningmethod in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram depicting one example of a computing apparatus(i.e., computer) suitable for executing the methods disclosed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to onlinecollaboration, and more specifically, to the social- and context-basedprovisioning of conference rooms. Provisioning a conference room may bedefined as proving the resources necessary to host a collaborativeconference among two or more users. The particular means through whichthe users communicated may be audio, video, text, or any combinationthereof. Embodiments of the present invention enable conference rooms tobe provisioned automatically so that a user can seamlessly be connectedto other users having specific traits, habits, and/or qualifications.

It should be noted that references throughout this specification tofeatures, advantages, or similar language herein do not imply that allof the features and advantages that may be realized with the embodimentsdisclosed herein should be, or are in, any single embodiment of theinvention. Rather, language referring to the features and advantages isunderstood to mean that a specific feature, advantage, or characteristicdescribed in connection with an embodiment is included in at least oneembodiment of the present invention. Thus, discussion of the features,advantages, and similar language, throughout this specification may, butdo not necessarily, refer to the same embodiment.

Furthermore, the described features, advantages, and characteristics ofthe invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or moreembodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize that theinvention may be practiced without one or more of the specific featuresor advantages of a particular embodiment. In other instances, additionalfeatures and advantages may be recognized in certain embodiments thatmay not be present in all embodiments of the invention.

These features and advantages will become more fully apparent from thefollowing drawings, description and appended claims, or may be learnedby the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter. The presentinvention will now be described in detail with reference to the figures.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting one embodiment of a roomprovisioning environment 100 in accordance with the present invention.As depicted, the room provisioning environment 100 includes aprovisioning server 110, network 120, communities 130A-130D, andregistered devices 140A-140C. The room provisioning environment 100enables a provisioning server 110 to introduce various users to eachother based on their participation in communities 130.

The provisioning server 110 may provision conference/chat rooms so thatusers may collaborate with each other. In some embodiments, theconference room is hosted on the provisioning server 110. Theprovisioning server 110 may serve as an intermediary between users, whothen directly connect to each other's devices once the users areintroduced. The provisioning server may crawl one or more communities inorder to gain information about users that enables social- andcontext-based room provisioning. For example, the provisioning server110 may crawl a career community 130B in order to place an employer incontact with a job-seeking user. The provisioning server 110 maycommunicate with social communities 130A-130D and registered devices140A-140D via the network 120, which may be an intranet, or network suchas the Internet.

The communities 130 may include one or more of a social community 130A,career community 130B, business community 130C, and project community130D. Any sort of social community or collaborative database may besuitable to serve as a community 130. The social community 130A, forexample, may include social networks. In some embodiments, socialcommunity 130A includes casual content, such as friendship content,status updates, currently trending news, birthdays, entertainment media,and the like. Career community 130B may include such communities ascareer-focused social networks, job search websites, resume bulletinboards, and the like. Business community 130C may represent suchcommunities as corporate intranets, market-tracking websites, corporateproductivity trackers, and the like. Project community 130D may includeniche communities that relate to special interests or projects, such asan ad hoc community formed to come up with a new advertising campaign,or a group project for an engineering thesis program.

The registered devices 140A-140C may include any sort of device throughwhich users may communicate once a conference room is provisioned byprovisioning server 110. Registered devices 140A-140C may includelaptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, PDAs, phablets, and the like.In some embodiments, a user's registered device(s) 140 is/are registeredwith the provisioning server 110, as it serves as a central node. Theprovisioning server 110 may introduce two or more users of theconference provisioning service together, who may then communicate viatheir registered devices 140.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram depicting one embodiment of a roomprovisioning system 200 in accordance with the present invention. Asdepicted, the room provisioning system 200 includes a provisioningserver 110 with topic determining module 210, user analysis module 220,device registry 230, template module 240, chat module 250, data storage260, community 130, and registered device 140. The community 130 andregistered device 140 are included to demonstrate their relationship toprovisioning server 110, and have already been described in thediscussion of FIG. 1.

The provisioning server 110 may access the one or more communities 130via its topic determining module 210 in order to find a suitable topicfor a room. The topic determining module 210 may provide a topic, orbroad subject of discussion, for the conference. In some embodiments,users may search a database of the topics of conferences in order tofind a conference of their interest. The topic determining module 210may determine topics by performing statistical analyses of a community130. For example, the topic determining module 210 may determine that aparticular topic, such as a newsworthy event, is trending on community130. By identifying this newsworthy event as a topic, the topicdetermining module 210 may enable the provisioning server 110 to createa chat whose subject of discussion is the newsworthy event. In someembodiments, the topics are not necessarily presented to a user, as thetopics may not be human-readable (e.g., a “topic” may consist of a longstring of terms separated by boolean operators. In embodiments where thetopics are not presented to a user, the room provisioning system 200 maydetermine a user's interests and on that basis may recommend conferencesto a user.

The user analysis module 220 may analyze users of a community 130. Inparticular, the user analysis module 220 may determine the interests,likes, and dislikes of users by analyzing the users' posts, liked items,uploaded material, websites to which a user links, and the like. Theuser analysis module 220 may create a user score for each user. In someembodiments, the user score is a composite of a user's social score,career score, and business score. The social aspect of a user score mayinclude how informative a user is, how social the user is, how activethe user is on a community, which language(s) a user speaks, a user'spersonality traits such as terseness, prolix, tendency to use nice orrude language, and the like. The user analysis module 220 may producethe career aspect of a user score by analyzing a user's background andrésumé details such as education, skills, and accomplishments. The useranalysis module 220 may arrive at the business metric of a user score byanalyzing a user's on-the-job performance, quality and quantity of work,productivity, and the like. Thus, a user score may, by numerous metrics,take into account a user's competency in any given area. In someembodiments, the user analysis module 220 predicts a user's currentavailability based on previous account activity, the time zone in whichthe user resides, and the like.

The device registry 230 may include one or more databases in whichusers' devices are listed. A registered device 140 is any sort ofnetwork-enabled communication device, such as a laptop, desktop, phone,smartphone, tablet, phablet, and the like. A user may elect to registerone or multiple devices with the device registry 230. The provisioningserver 110 may use the device registry 230 to look up a user'sregistered device 140 in order to initiate a conference with the user.In some embodiments, a user may register multiple devices with thedevice registry 230 and optionally set a preferential order for the userto be contacted. For example, a user might have two registered devices140, a smartphone and a laptop. When it is time to contact this user,the device registry 230 may indicate that the user's smartphone andlaptop should both be called at the same time, or that the smartphoneshould be tried first, and if the user doesn't answer, then a callattempt should take place to the laptop. The device registry 230 mayalso include a means by which users can change registered devicepreferences, such as the call priority of their devices, whether toinitiate a conference in audio, video, text, or any combination thereof,how long to try to contact a device, as well as a means to add or removeregistered devices 140.

The template module 240 may include instructions to generate, store, andorganize conference room templates. The provisioning server 110 may usetemplates to find specific users for a conference room based on theroom's topic and the users' user scores. For example, if a conferenceroom topic is Company X's fourth quarter finances, then the templatemodule may find users who have a combination of properties that indicatethat they are appropriate for a discussion of Company X's fourthquarter. The template module 240 may generate a template that ranksusers who have a high social score relating to economics, and a highbusiness score relating to Company X. The template module 240 may recalltemplates from previous discussions that would be appropriate for a newconference. For example, the template module 240 may base a template forconference regarding 2016 best-selling novels off of a template for aconference regarding 2015 best-selling novels. A template may weigh thevarious aspects of a user score separately; for example, a template mayemphasize a user's career score over a business score and a user'sbusiness score over a social score. Thus, the template module 240 mayenable the provision server 110 to provision conference rooms for userswhose interests, knowledge, opinions, and/or project goals arecompatible. In some embodiments, the template module 240 dynamicallyproduces templates based on information received from the topicdetermining module 210 and user analysis module 220.

The chat module 250 may provision and maintain conference rooms, as wellas invite users to the conference rooms. In some embodiments, the chatmodule 250 hosts the conference room by instructing the roomprovisioning system 200 to allocate computing and networking resources.The chat module 250 may dynamically create a new conference room when itreceives a topic from the topic determining module 210 and a templatefrom the template module 240. The chat module 250 may invite users to aconference room by notifying the users on their registered device(s)140. In some embodiments, the notification is a telephone, call, VoIPcall, SMS message, MMS message, calendar event, email, third-partyapplication notification, and the like. The chat module 250 may enable auser to create conference rooms that are invite-only.

Data storage 260 may be accessed by any of the modules of theprovisioning server 110, community 130, and/or registered device inorder to store or retrieve data. Stored information may includetemplates, user information, user scores, conference room logs, and thelike.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart depicting one embodiment of a room provisioningmethod 300 in accordance with the present invention. As depicted, theroom provisioning method 300 includes receiving (310) information,determining (320) a topic, creating (330) a chat, finding (340) usersfor a chat, ranking (350) users, and inviting (360) users to the chat.The room provisioning method 300 may use the room provisioning system200 to provision conference rooms to users.

Receiving (310) information from communities and/or feeds may includereceiving details from news feeds and/or receiving trending activitiesfrom social collaborations or communities. The communities may includesocial communities, career communities, business communities, andproject communities as disclosed earlier in the discussion of FIG. 1. Insome embodiments, news feeds and social media are crawled in real-timein order to obtain information relating to what is popular or trendingat a given time.

Determining (320) a topic may include determining a topic ofconversation or theme for a conference room. In some embodiments, thetopic determination operation 320 is performed by the topic determiningmodule 210. The topic determining module 320 may involve crawlingnetworks and determining new topics for new conference rooms in realtime.

Creating (330) a chat may include creating a conference room dedicatedto the topic. The conference room may be created and maintained by thechat module 250. In some embodiments, the chat creation module 330creates a placeholder for a conference room, and the conference room isfully deployed when users log into the room.

Finding (340) users for a chat may include using the user analysismodule 220 to find suitable users on one or more communities 130 toinvite to the conference room. In some embodiments, the users areselected based on their user score and the template for the conferenceroom, which is created by the template module 240. For example, thetemplate may instruct chat module 250 to find users whose user scoresare relatively high in the social component but low in the career score.

Ranking (350) the users may include sorting users using the templateaccording to their user scores. In some embodiments, users are filteredout based on their user scores in order to limit a conference room tousers that possess certain desirable aspects. Inviting (360) the usersmay include sending an invitation to the provisioned conference room. Insome embodiments, the users are notified of their invitation via theirregistered device 140.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram depicting components of a computer 400suitable for executing the methods disclosed herein. It should beappreciated that FIG. 4 provides only an illustration of one embodimentand does not imply any limitations with regard to the environments inwhich different embodiments may be implemented. Many modifications tothe depicted environment may be made.

As depicted, the computer 400 includes communications fabric 402, whichprovides communications between computer processor(s) 404, memory 406,persistent storage 408, communications unit 412, and input/output (I/O)interface(s) 414. Communications fabric 402 can be implemented with anyarchitecture designed for passing data and/or control informationbetween processors (such as microprocessors, communications and networkprocessors, etc.), system memory, peripheral devices, and any otherhardware components within a system. For example, communications fabric402 can be implemented with one or more buses.

Memory 406 and persistent storage 408 are computer readable storagemedia. In the depicted embodiment, memory 406 includes random accessmemory (RAM) 416 and cache memory 418. In general, memory 406 caninclude any suitable volatile or non-volatile computer readable storagemedia.

One or more programs may be stored in persistent storage 408 forexecution by one or more of the respective computer processors 404 viaone or more memories of memory 406. The persistent storage 408 may be amagnetic hard disk drive, a solid state hard drive, a semiconductorstorage device, read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-onlymemory (EPROM), flash memory, or any other computer readable storagemedia that is capable of storing program instructions or digitalinformation.

The media used by persistent storage 408 may also be removable. Forexample, a removable hard drive may be used for persistent storage 408.Other examples include optical and magnetic disks, thumb drives, andsmart cards that are inserted into a drive for transfer onto anothercomputer readable storage medium that is also part of persistent storage408.

Communications unit 412, in these examples, provides for communicationswith other data processing systems or devices. In these examples,communications unit 412 includes one or more network interface cards.Communications unit 412 may provide communications through the use ofeither or both physical and wireless communications links.

I/O interface(s) 414 allows for input and output of data with otherdevices that may be connected to computer 400. For example, I/Ointerface 414 may provide a connection to external devices 420 such as akeyboard, keypad, a touch screen, and/or some other suitable inputdevice. External devices 420 can also include portable computer readablestorage media such as, for example, thumb drives, portable optical ormagnetic disks, and memory cards.

Software and data used to practice embodiments of the present inventioncan be stored on such portable computer readable storage media and canbe loaded onto persistent storage 408 via I/O interface(s) 414. I/Ointerface(s) 414 may also connect to a display 422. Display 422 providesa mechanism to display data to a user and may be, for example, acomputer monitor.

The programs described herein are identified based upon the applicationfor which they are implemented in a specific embodiment of theinvention. However, it should be appreciated that any particular programnomenclature herein is used merely for convenience, and thus theinvention should not be limited to use solely in any specificapplication identified and/or implied by such nomenclature.

The embodiments disclosed herein include a system, a method, and/or acomputer program product. The computer program product may include acomputer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readableprogram instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out themethods disclosed herein.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowcharts and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

What is claimed:
 1. A method for provisioning chat rooms, the methodcomprising: determining a topic by accessing one or more usercommunities, wherein the one or more communities include one or more ofa social media community, a news community, a project community, and amarketplace community; creating a chat corresponding to the topic;selecting one or more users to invite to the chat using a template,wherein the template is used to select the one or more users based oneach user's social score, career score, and business score, wherein thesocial score of each user is determined according to one or more of auser's degree of terseness of language, degree of prolixity of language,and tendency to use rude language, wherein the career score of each useris determined according to one or more of a user's biographicalbackground information, education information, skills information, andaccomplishments information, wherein the business score of each user isdetermined according to one or more of a user's one-the-job performanceinformation, quality of work information, and productivity information,and wherein the template is defined by a weight placed on each of auser's social score, career score, and business score; calculating ahighest-ranked user of the one or more users according to the template;and inviting the one or more users to the chat, wherein inviting the oneor more users to the chat comprises inviting the highest-ranked user,wherein the one or more users communicate in the chat by one or more oftext, audio, and video, and wherein inviting the one or more users tothe chat comprises alerting one or more registered devices of each user.